Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center is pleased to introduce the Foot & Ankle Program at Sentara.
The Program partners highly skilled physicians with state-of-the-art procedures, so patients will have a pathway to receive the right care for their foot and ankle health concerns, all while staying close to home for treatment.
The physicians which support the Foot & Ankle Program at Sentara perform a multitude of procedures, from ankle replacements and pediatric flat foot reconstructions to trailblazing minimally-invasive SubchondroplastyÂź Procedures which use stem cells and a liquid bone material to fill internal fractures and lesions. These high-tech procedures allow a shorter recovery which means less pain, fewer follow up appointments and less time away from work, ensuring patients can get back to their lives sooner.
âWeâre really excited and honored to be working with Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center to provide this level of care to patients,â says Dr. Vincent Bonini, Doctor of Podiatry Medicine, F.A.C.F.A.S.
Dr. Bonini is certified by the American Board of Foot and Ankle Surgery. He and his team have been based in Prince William County for the last 25 years. While the group treats traditional aliments, the field of podiatry has grown.
âWeâve become a very specific subset of orthopedics, at this point. Our roots are in the bunions and hammer toes, but with the advent of newer technology, weâve really branched out to all phases of orthopedics as it relates to foot and ankle,â explains Dr. Bonini.
Pain or injury in your foot or ankle can keep you from activities you enjoy. It may even be keeping you from simply walking. With 26 bones in each foot and 7 bones in each ankle, it can often be complicated to determine what is actually creating the pain. When conservative measures such as rest, anti-inflammatories or physical therapy are not offering relief, it’s probably time to see a specialist.
Whether itâs pain due to a chronic condition such as diabetes or arthritis, a congenital deformity, an overuse fracture, or an accidental/work related injury, our team will be able to connect you to the care you need, with both outpatient and inpatient services.
Dr. Bonini says foot and ankle discomfort and injuries shouldnât keep you from activities you enjoy, âDonât live with the pain, we can help right away.â
To be connected to the Foot & Ankle Program at Sentara or to find a podiatrist, call 1-800-SENTARA or search âFind a Providerâ at Sentara.com.
Newly renovated rooms, family birthing units and an open floor plan is transforming the patient experience for expectant mothers.
On Thursday, November 30, 2017, Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center officially launched its Womenâs Health Center. The hospital recently celebrated 45 years of serving the community. This latest development showcases Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Centerâs commitment to women and families.
âFor decades, weâve served the community as Womenâs and Childrenâs services. As we look towards the future, we are focused on the comprehensive needs of women in Northern Virginia. The new Womenâs Health Center provides the infrastructure we need to expand our services and care for women throughout their lifetime,â explains Kathie Johnson, President, Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center.
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Narcan is often used to "wash out" the effects of opioid use for someone who overdosed.
In the past year, 1,159 doses of the counteracting drug -- which is also an opioid -- were administered at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center to counteract the effects of heroin and other drugs.
That has prompted emergency department doctors Chinye Obidi to use words like "epidemic," and "overdose phenomenon."
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WOODBRIDGE -- Katey Gemmmell just wants you to STOP.
She's a registered nurse at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, and she's put together a new program called Project: STOP -- Speaking Out and Teaching Opioid Prevention.
On Thursday night, she'll join others at a community discussion held at the hospital on the epidemic that has become the opioid crisis not only in the U.S. but in our region.
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Forty-five years ago, Woodbridge looked like a different place.
"There was a little old house at the bottom of Jefferson Davis Highway and Opitz Boulevard where we bought chicken eggs. And there was probably two stoplights on all of two stop lights on Route 1 -- one at Marsumsco, and the other at Longview Drive," said Carol S. Shapiro, director of the Sentara Northern Virginia Wound Healing Center.
She was one of the founders of what was Potomac Hospital, which opened in 1972. On Thursday, the community gathered at what is today Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center to celebrate the hospital's anniversary during a celebration called "45 Years New."
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November is American Diabetes Management month and with more than 30 million people living with diabetes in the U.S., itâs no wonder the American Diabetes Association estimates at least seven million of those people, donât even realize theyâre living the disease.
Health organizations and those working within the field say the disease has reached epidemic portions. Itâs something the Sentara Diabetes Management Program team sees every day.
âThe numbers are increasing, both type one and two are on the rise,â says Registered Nurse and Certified Diabetes Educator Robyn Johanson, âIt is a chronic, lifelong illness that really requires the person to learn the skills to self-manage their diabetes. And with that, they need a lot of ongoing support and the necessary tools to do that successfully.â
Diabetes can be confusing
When you eat, your body turns food into sugars, or glucose. At that point, your pancreas is supposed to release insulin. Insulin serves as a âkeyâ to open your cells, to allow the glucose to enter — and allows you to use the glucose for energy. But with diabetes, this system does not work.
âDiabetes is a problem with your body using the sugar we need for energy, so someone with type one diabetes is unable to get that sugar out of their blood. People with type two, have a bit more difficulty doing so, because of a hormone called insulin. So type one needs to take insulin, because their body doesnât make any. Whereas type two diabetes, they tend to have trouble using that insulin. So clinically, itâs a lifelong management of controlling medicine, physical activity, healthy eating and monitoring blood sugar, as well,â explains Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Educator Abbie Chesterson.
For more than 30 years, the team at the Sentara Diabetes Management Program has been helping patients understand and learn to live with their disease.
âOur patients come to us through physician referrals. We are a group of nurses, dietitians and community health workers who follow a standard set of blood sugar targets for American Diabetes Educators,â explains Team Coordinator Genevieve Thompson.
Thompson, a registered nurse and certified diabetes educator, oversees the team made up of three full-time and three part-time employees. While the group gets referrals from area doctors, itâs up to the patients to show up and make the commitment to make some changes. But, admitting thereâs a problem can be overwhelming for some just learning they have the disease.
âPeople feel like they failed. Their pancreases failed, the person hasnât failed,â says Johanson. âWhen you say that to somebody, they feel a lot better because they blame themselves.â
Within the Sentara Health System, Northern Virginia has the largest diabetes management program. Not only is this a densely populated region, itâs culturally diverse and those different cultures bring different diabetes management challenges. The team has gone out into the community and sees the type of food which is traditional for each culture.
âWe individualize it. If someone comes in from a Middle Eastern country, we have a list of typical Middle Eastern foods that we can talk about, because maybe theyâre not going to have hamburger buns and French fries. We try to make it as beneficial to the patient as can be,â explains Chesterson.
Some symptoms of diabetes include frequent urination, excessive thirst, nerve sensation changes, blurry vision and slow healing. But, not everyone has those traditional warning signs, and thatâs why community health members go out to the public.
The program, along with a grant from the Potomac Health Foundation has started doing pre-diabetes screenings over the last three years, more than a thousand people have been screened.
âEarly care and detection is so important. The positive side, when you detect it early you can work at preventing the progression of type two diabetes,â explains Community Health Educator, Johanna Segovia, MPH.
Regardless of the type of diabetes, this group is committed to caring. The team wants to empower people so they can live their healthiest life while managing their disease.
âPatients shouldnât be afraid to reach out and get help. If theyâre struggling, we can get them back on track and offer support,â explains Thompson.
Adds Chesterson, âEducation is really important if you donât know what to do it’s going to be even harder, so learn what you can do. Thatâs why weâre here.â
âHaving a chronic disease is very stressful and once you are you in control of it, a lot of that stress goes away because youâre managing it. Itâs not managing you,â adds Johanson.
If you have any questions about managing your diabetes, finding a diabetes support group or learning more about the pre-diabetes program, call 703-523-0590 or email: [email protected].
From Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center:
On Friday, 10/6/17- We had âDonuts & Detectionâ outside of Duck Donuts at Stonebridge. We screened 8 women for mammograms during the course of the event which ran from 7:30-10:30
Pictured: Duck Donuts staff
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Sentara Susan Bahorich sat down for an interview with Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center President Kathie Johnson.
Not only did Kathie celebrate her one year anniversary this summer, but Sentara is also preparing for our 45th hospital anniversary this fall, and she spoke frankly on several different topics and is very engaging and informative.
SB: Youâve been at the helm just over a year now. How has your first year gone?
KJ: Itâs been absolutely wonderful. Very exciting- there are terrific people here to help with things and weâve achieved a lot in one very short year.
SB: Youâve accomplished a lot in one year. Whatâs next?
KJ: Our vision is to be the healthcare provider of choice in our market, which is Northern Virginia. And what weâve done is work with our community to identify services they would like us to bring to the community. Our goal is that people should not have to travel for healthcare, they should be able to get what they need right here. And, thatâs actually what our #MySentara is all about â this is our hospital, we own it, we love it, we want it to be the best that it is and itâs also our communityâs hospital, so we want to be here for the community and whatever they need.
SB: What does that look like for the hospital and patients?
KJ: We have renovation projects going everywhere to support our ability to deliver the best and highest quality care to our patients. Weâre also recruiting new providers to this market and bringing in new programs, so itâs very exciting. Weâve done a whole lot in a pretty short time.
SB: This year weâre celebrating our 45th Anniversary- not only remembering our past but looking to the future.
KJ: When you look to the future what weâre going to see is more services more acute services more preventative services, more outreach to our community. Our mission is to improve healthcare every day so weâre not just here when people get ill, weâre here to keep people well and work with our community to do that. We have a lot of partners in the community to help us there and thatâs just a lot of strength that we can build on to be successful.
SB: Already there are a lot of people who have shared their love of Potomac, but thereâs a lot of strength in Sentara and what weâve been able to build and craft here.
KJ: Certainly, there are a lot of people who love Potomac. There are a lot of people who remember Potomac and when it started and have been here for many years and have dedicated a lot of services and a lot of heart and a lot of commitment to the hospital and to our patients, but the future is coming. Healthcare is changing. Itâs growing, there are new therapies, there are new ways to stay healthy, there are new cures and we want to be at the forefront of bringing all of that to our community.
SB: As a not for profit hospital, what does that mean for our patients?
KJ: By not for profit, it means that any money that we receive, that doesnât go for expenses, is invested back into the hospital so that we can continue providing services to our patients. We provide a lot of care that we do not receive payment for which is part of our mission is to reach out and do that for the community. We are very proud that we are able to do that and support other not for profit partners in the community in providing that care. So, not for profit means there are no shareholders or anything like that. It means that any money that we are able to keep, after all of our expenses, weâre able to give back to our patients and community.
SB: And, that means that no patient is ever turned away.
